US police beat unarmed man to death in California

A photograph provided by the family of David Sal Silva, showing him with three of his children, Makayla, 10, Katelyn, 4, and Chelsey, 8

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Police officers in the United States have beaten an unarmed man to death while acting disproportionately to subdue him.
David Sal Silva, the 33-year-old father of four young children, died on May 9, shortly after a group of police officers beat him severely with batons.
The police officers were responding to an emergency call about a possibly intoxicated man outside Kern Medical Center (KMC) in Bakersfield, California.
Silva allegedly resisted when the policemen approached him. The officers called for backup and the man was soon being beaten in the face and upper body by as many as nine policemen using batons.
At least one of the cops held a German Shepherd on a leash.
Silva later had trouble breathing. He was taken to KMC, where he was pronounced dead.
Police officers confiscated the mobile phones of witnesses, who had recorded the events on their cell phone cameras.
“When I got outside, I saw two officers beating a man with batons and they were hitting his head; so every time they would swing, I could hear the blows to his head,” said Ruben Ceballos, a local resident.
Ceballos said that although Silva was on the ground screaming for help, the police officers kept beating him. After several minutes, Silva stopped screaming.
“His body was just lying on the street and before the ambulance arrived, one of the officers performed CPR on him and another one used a flashlight on his eyes but I’m sure he was already dead,” Ceballos noted.
“He wasn’t resisting arrest, he was begging for his life,” said another witness.
A third witness, Jason Land said, “They (officers) jumped out, reached for their bats, and beat that man until they killed him right in front of my face. They behaved like animals.”
Silva’s family has hired attorney David Cohn, and plans to file a civil rights lawsuit in a federal district court.
Cohn has formally requested police in a letter not to tamper with the video evidence on the phones.
“We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words,” he said.
Cohn added, “And thank God we have concerned citizens who take video and pictures of incidents like this and who are ultimately policing the police… But we will get to the bottom of this and I ask the sheriff’s department once again, what are you hiding?”
MP/HJL